Deposition of thin films on a substrate surface is a ubiquitous process in a variety of industries including semiconductor processing, diffusion barrier coatings and dielectrics for magnetic read/write heads. In the semiconductor industry, in particular, miniaturization benefits from atomic level control of thin film deposition to produce conformal coatings on high aspect structures. One method for deposition of thin films with control and conformal deposition is atomic layer deposition (ALD), which employs sequential, surface reactions to form layers of precise thickness. Most ALD processes are based on binary reaction sequences which deposit a binary compound film. Because the surface reactions are sequential, the two gas phase reactants are not in contact, and possible gas phase reactions that may form and deposit particles are limited. Another method for deposition of films is chemical vapor deposition, in which two or more reagents are co-flowed to deposit a film over a substrate.
Silicon is a very common component in semiconductor processing. With the continuation of device miniaturization and increase in the complexity of device architecture, many challenges present to deposit highly conformal films over these structures. For example, 3D NAND memory manufacturing will generally call for highly conformal silicon dioxide and silicon nitride inside of holes that have very high aspect ratios. Generally, such films target a similar quality to those deposited via high temperature processes (i.e., greater than 400, 500 or 600° C.). Thin films of this quality which hit high conformality targets are generally deposited by high temperature ALD. However, there are few silicon ALD precursors that can withstand temperatures of greater than 400° C. without self-decomposition. Accordingly, there are new chemistries and methodologies for the deposition of silicon-containing films are sought which addresses one or more of the problems described above.